England are spending the next few days in Queenstown, the spiritual home of the bungy jump. There will be no need for the players or coaches to throw themselves off the nearest bridge, however, to experience a sinking feeling in the pits of their stomachs. After Saturday night they know exactly how it feels to hurtle towards oblivion, only to be jerked to safety in the nick of time.

As they catch their breath in the sanctuary of their new lakeside base the England management will certainly be hoping they have now weathered the worst Pool B can throw at them. Leaving aside the missed kicks on both sides, this was a match that Argentina should have won. Until they ran out of steam in the final half‑hour the Pumas were on the threshold of a hugely significant result which would have placed question marks over England's entire modus operandi. Those uncomfortable questions remain valid but, for now, a full autopsy can be postponed.

Maybe this scare will do England a favour, as was the case in similar circumstances at the last World Cup, in France in 2007. Four years ago the English made an even worse start, scraping past the United States in Lens and getting buried 36-0 by South Africa, only to regroup and make the final. Now, as then, there needs to be a mental shift, an acknowledgment that things cannot stay the same if major disappointment is to be averted. Whether the team manager, Martin Johnson, is flexible enough to commit to such a leap is an entirely different matter.

Watching Australia react so impressively to first-half problems and cut Italy apart up in North Harbour, though, simply served to highlight England's one-dimensional approach. Of course winning is the core objective at a World Cup but Argentina clearly felt that, if they protected the ball and waited for a conservative England to grow frustrated, they would be more than halfway there.

By deliberately taking the English on up the middle and flooding the breakdown, they simply mimicked what South Africa did so successfully at Twickenham last November. The only real difference was that the Boks kept going until the end. England, hamstrung by their relative lack of pace and ambition in key areas, are not a side likely to outflank teams who come hard at them.

In England's defence it did feel as if Dunedin had suddenly morphed into a suburb of Buenos Aires, with thousands of Pumas fans turning the city's new indoor arena, which has replaced Carisbrook's famous House of Pain, into something more akin to the House of Spain. Nor did it help that poor old Jonny Wilkinson missed five kicks at goal, nor that Argentina's pack displayed such power and passion in the first 60 minutes.

Yet after all England's confident pre-match noises they were ultimately reliant on Argentina's inability to land four penalties and a drop-goal in the first half. Had even a couple of those efforts at goal sailed over, the perspiring Pumas would have been out of range, notwithstanding Wilkinson's worst kicking streak in 88 Tests for his country. The loss of two key backs, the fly-half Felipe Contepomi and the centre Gonzalo Tiesi, further complicated matters for Santiago Phelan's side, depriving them of their creative hub and most reliable midfield tackler.

The mood brightened for the boys in black only after the arrival of Ben Youngs, Dylan Hartley and Matt Stevens, all of whom injected welcome pace and purpose when they came off the bench. Youngs has had a difficult time lately, struggling for form and fitness, but he was sharpness personified as he darted through a defensive hole to score the converted 66th-minute try which earned England the lead. Taking his cue from the management, the scrum-half preferred to dwell on the outcome rather than point any fingers.

"We probably left it a little bit later than we would have liked but the important thing is that we won," Youngs said. "It doesn't matter if it's by one point, the winning is all that mattered. As Johnno said in the changing room: 'Winning's winning. It doesn't matter how.'"

It should be obvious to all and sundry, even so, that England need to improve substantially to do anything remotely spectacular at this tournament. Youngs and Stevens must be pushing hard for starting places and the flanker Lewis Moody, the squad's captain, was fit enough to take a full part in the warm-up before the match on Saturday. It is also inconceivable that Wilkinson will fire as many blanks from the tee next time, even if sources from inside the camp suggest he is far from enamoured with the balls being used at this World Cup.

The good news for Johnson is that England's next two opponents, Georgia and Romania, will not pose the same all-round threat as the Pumas, partly for scheduling reasons. While the English mull over their leisure options, the Georgians must face Scotland in Invercargill on Wednesday before picking themselves up to face England back in Dunedin on Sunday.

The gap in quality between rugby's haves and have-nots is showing welcome signs of narrowing but the big boys still expect preferential treatment. If England had been asked to tackle Argentina and Scotland inside four days, they would have gone ballistic. In all sorts of ways their next fortnight will be far less stressful than it could have been.